Phosphorus Burns: Karin Oneshots
by wingedmercury
Summary: Because it's dangerous to underrate her.  A collection of Karin-centric one-shots.
1. The People In My Head

_Welcome to my latest brain child! I've just fallen in love with Karin as a character; she is wonderfully complicated and deep, compared to Sakura (IMHO), and I'd like to try to illustrate that with a collection of Karin-centric and Taka-centric fics.  
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_A Note on the Title:_

_The Kanji for Karin's name spells out "perfume" and "phosphorus." A lot of people focus on the perfume aspect of Karin, which I think represents her outward, more girlish and annoying behavior (like flirting endlessly with Sasuke). But Karin's inner nature is more like phosphorus, which is a highly reactive and combustible element (e.g. "Phosphorus Burns"). Kind of reminds me like a more troubled version of Kushina in that way...  
_

_Ultimately, I want to get to know Karin better in order to write a chapter fic about her (it will probably be my last major chaptered work that I'll publish on FFnet, sadly). I've already done a bunch of character sketches for her; thought it'd be fun to share them.  
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_There will be a range between humor, angst, etc, in this epic Karin collection. I'm starting off with an introspective piece wherein Karin thinks about her former teammates:)  
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_Note: Sorry for any confusion, but I rearranged chapters one and two, just 'cause I'm anal like that:)  
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_Enjoy!  
_

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_The People in my Head_

_That's it,_ Karin thinks. _I'm officially going insane—they should put me in a straight jacket before I become a danger to myself._ It's the lack of sleep, damn it, the unending insomnia. If she does manage to drift into that gray zone between waking and dreaming, _they_ will be there: Suigetsu and Jugo and—Sasuke.

They're like ducks, swimming a mobius strip in her mind, quacking incessantly: the goddamned voices won't stop, and sometimes… Sometimes Karin finds herself screaming at the concrete walls, or throttling the prison bars, and then she thinks that perhaps her mental instability is no longer an affect with which to fool the prison warden.

The voices are crooning and quacking now, Karin can't stop them; not even when she steps into a pale beam of moonlight slanting down through the high barred window. _Hey Karin,_ says Jugo, his voice soft like a cascade of white feathers; like the moonlight itself. _Hey Karin—it's not your fault. I wish I had been there to protect you…_

"Fuck you, Jugo," Karin mutters, staring resolutely into the moonlight suffusing her face. His words make her itch, make her fingers tremble for a kunai to fling into that silvered abyss above her head. _Dammit it, Jugo,_ she mutters in her imagination, _dammit, dammit, dammit._

Suigetsu is next, and his words are easier to bear, perhaps because it is a well-worn track. His effluvium is a stream of expletives that could melt the metal off of a kunai. She laughs at his garrulous _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ and _Shit, Karin. Sasuke went all psycho killer on your ass, huh, Karin?_ But in her mind, underneath Suigetsu's bluster there is a genuine concern. _Fuck, Karin. Shit._ It's like a caustic balm that Karin clutches in her white hands.

_Thanks,_ she tells Suigetsu. _Thanks, shithead. _It's oddly comforting to have Suigetsu here, even if it is only in her moonlit imagination. (Truth be told, she'd be happy to see even Suigetsu, now; now that she's stuck in solitary confinement, in the bowels of Konoha maximum security prison.)

The last voice is no voice—it is silence, an unseen but felt stare, the whorl of red eyes in the masked shadows. _Karin, you were simply in the way_, the silent shadows say, and Karin understands his meaning: Sasuke hadn't cared about killing her, one way or the other. _You were in the way; that is all._

Except that this revelation does not make it any better: it makes it much, much worse. In the darkness, she stares down those red eyes that swirl, that coalesce in the shadows.

"What was I to you?" Karin whispers to the night, now fully awake.

No one answers.

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_a/n Please review! (or flame, heh heh;)_


	2. Weird Group Dynamics

___SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION, but I rearranged the chapters: chapter one is the NEW chapter, while below is the revamped version of what used to be the first chapter (and is now the second). Sorry about that...heh...heh.  
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___Here's some humor, just because I can (and because I love the love-hate thing Karin and Suigetsu have going on)._

___Title: Weird Group Dynamics  
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___Ship: Karin x Suigetsu...but not really  
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___Category: CRACKish :D  
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_Weird Group Dynamics_

"Suigetsu, what the fuck are you doing in my underwear drawer?" Karin snaps as she storms into her room at the inn, her hand clenched around a kunai.

Suigetsu, far from being cowed, merely continues his search. "Bitch, I know you have it—"

"Have what?" Karin snarls, landing a drop-kick on her foe and smashing her kunai down on his head. Unfortunately, instead of the splash and gurgle of brains splattering on the floor, Suigetsu liquifies—and it is Karin's underwear collection that takes the brunt of the punishment.

"Damn it!" Karin howls, realizing too late that her attack, and Suigetsu's subsequent dematerialization into water, has gotten her precious, precious panties all wet—wet with _his_ stinking body odor.

"The fuck is wrong with you, shithead? You normally go through people's underwear?" she screeches. Sasuke and Jugo, who have rooms next to hers, poke their heads in.

"Karin, are you okay?" Jugo asks, his voice soft with concern. Behind him, Sasuke just harrumphs and turns his head away, bored.

"No, _no_ I am not okay!" Karin shrieks. "Pervert here was going through my underwear collection, and he had the unmitigated audacity to get them all wet!"

Jugo turns a shade of puce and hastily retracts his head from the ajar door; the motion reminds Karin of a startled turtle going back into his shell.

"He got your underwear wet…? Shit—ah—I see!" Jugo mumbles.

"I didn't know you and Suigetsu had a thing for each other," Sasuke mutters before closing the door.

Karin's face turns beet-red. "You fucking assholes, that's not—"

But she can't get another word in edgewise, because Suigetsu is barking with laughter. "Oh my gwad, they thought we were making out! That's—that's amazing!"

"As if I would ever make out with garbage like you," Karin snaps, crossing her arms and glowering down at Suigetsu, who has collapsed on the floor with laughter. "Now. Since you've _already_ embarrassed me in front of Sasuke," Karin mutters, a pained expression on her face, "get the fuck out of my room. I have some designer underwear to disinfect."

Suigetsu shakes his head and picks himself up from the floor. "As if I'd ever make out with a crazy bitch like you," he replies. "Anyway, why the fuck did you have my toothbrush in your underwear drawer?"

There is a moment of silence as Karin regards the blue-stripped toothbrush in Suigetsu's hand. _Damage control!_ she shouts, inwardly—because apparently, the toothbrush in question belongs to Suigetsu and _not_ Sasuke. _Mother fucking damage control!_ "I…uh…thought it was mine," Karin mumbles.

Suigetsu rolls his eyes. "You're a terrible lier. I can see your pink toothbrush in the bathroom from here. And plus, who the fuck keeps a toothbrush in their underwear drawer?" He raises his eyebrows lecherously, and after a dramatic pause, concludes, "Obviously, you thought that my toothbrush was Sasuke's. Geez, you're such a scary stalker. What were you going to do with it, masturbate—"

With an inchoate roar, Karin lunges at Suigetsu; before he can de-solidify himself, Karin knees him in the groin. Suigetsu literally turns into a quivering puddle on the floor, moaning in pain.

"You fucktard," Karin shrieks, "you got me all wet again!" She points to her pants and wails, "I'm all soaked with your nastiness!"

Suigetsu re-solidifies and grins toothily. "Yeah baby, that's the way you like it."

"Get the fuck out! And take your toothbrush with you, you heathen!" Karin roars.

Suigetsu shrugs. "Yeah, yeah. I've got things to do anyway, like brushing my teeth. Dental hygiene is important, you know?"

"OUT!" Karin screeches, throwing open the door; to her surprise, Jugo, who hitherto had his ear pressed to the door, falls forward into her room.

"Er…sorry…it's just that, well, Sasuke wanted me to make sure that you weren't…yeah," is Jugo's maladroit reply.

Karin heaves a pained sigh. "Jugo. Just because I'm covered in Suigetsu's wretched refuse," she says with a shudder, "does not mean that I'd ever—_ever_—make out with that sub-human—"

However, Karin does not have time to finish, because at that precise moment, Suigetsu shoves his lips into her personal space: he is kissing her. Jugo's eyes go wide. Karin tries to scream muffled expletives as Suigetsu's tongue is shoved down her throat. When he finally releases her, she falls to the floor with choking and gagging noises.

"So you guys really were making out?" Jugo mutters in disbelief.

"That was probably the grossest thing I've ever seen," Sasuke calls, leaning against the far wall in the hallway. "Get your shit together; we're leaving in one hour. And Suigetsu? Leave Karin alone," he mutters.

"Eh, come on Sasuke, she likes it!" Suigetsu calls back, his wide grin threatening to split his face. "Look, I have her quivering with delight!"

"More like convulsing to the point of retching," Sasuke muses, watching as Karin twitches on the floor like an epileptic.

"Karin definitely has the hots for me," Suigetsu retorts. "Look, my fangirl even stole my—"

But before Suigetsu can procure the incriminating toothbrush, Karin leaps up from the floor and tackles him.

"You fucking bastard! Don't you dare tell Sasuke about that! I will cut off your balls, you hear me, Suigetsu! I've experimented on you before, and so help me Kami, this time I'll make you a eunuch—"

"Karin," Sasuke snaps, his voice weary, "stop making out with Suigetsu and get ready; we're leaving in one hour. _One hour_," he repeats with emphasis before turning into his room, away from the bizarre people he has surrounded himself with.

Karin, who had been perched on top of Suigetsu, ready to rip out his jugular vein with her manicured nails, falls off suddenly, as if electrocuted; she twitches on the floor. Suigetsu recovers himself, standing up with a wicked smile. "Here babe," Suigetsu croons, tossing Karin his toothbrush. "You can take that and shove it up your—"

Karin howls, chucks the toothbrush at Suigetsu—which goes right through him and embeds itself in the wall—then turns into her room, closing the door with a resounding slam.

"So…" Jugo ventures, seriously confused, "are you two a thing now…or what?"

Suigetsu smiles widely. "Yep. Guess you could say that."

Jugo scratches his head, lost in thought. Finally, he says, "I hope that won't make for weird group dynamics…"

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_Please review:)_


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